Project Spotlight

Re-confessionalization and Internationalization (ca. 1914-today) begins with the twofold development of the Luther-renaissance and dialectical theology, concomitant with the democratic breakthrough within the majority churches of the Nordic countries and with a nearly unanimous support also from theological voices to the secularity of Nordic law. The introduction of Human Rights as well as principal distinctions between church and state, however, leads to a broader understanding of collective religious rights than was earlier common in the Nordic countries.

Constitutionalization & Hegemonization (ca. 1800s-1950s) focusses on the development towards secular positivism, not least by focusing on how the Nordic constitutions from 1809 onwards paved the way for a monolithic understanding of law, based, on the surface, on a general rejection of religious laws and religious influence of law, though combined with ideas of freedom of religion together with a special concern for the majority churches.

Confessionalization & Institutionalization (ca. 1530s-ca. 1730s) analyzes the influence of Melanchthon and other theologians during the secular take-over of all legal powers, related also to church matters. In a short-term perspective, the Reformation led to the re-introduction of religious laws (Mosaic Law and aspects of Canon Law), but in the long-term perspective we see the emergence of a more general secularization of the understanding of law through particular interpretations of the Lutheran concept of ‘the two regiments’ and its associate concepts.